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PODCAST

The Shift with Sam Baker

The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women"s voices once they pass 40? That"s where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

45:30

Dr Gladys McGarey: Life lessons from a 103 year old -...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2026/01/13

To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Last but very much not least is my oldest ever guest Dr Gladys McGarey. Dr Gladys was 102 when we recorded this episode. She has sadly since died, in September 2024, two months before her 104th birthday...---- A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote

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38:21

Isabel Allende on feminism, anger and being 'fatally...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2026/01/06

To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up, bestselling novelist Isabel Allende...---- The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the

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54:06

Lynda La Plante on a lifetime of breaking boundaries...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/12/30

To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up, screenwriting legend Lynda La Plante...---- My guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be

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49:23

Helen Garner on divorce, grandmothering and the...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/12/23

To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up is Australian literary legend Helen Garner who, in her 83rd year has finally broken out in the UK and US and won the Baillie Gifford Prize for her collected diaries, How To End A Story...--- My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit

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50:32

Miriam Margolyes on the power of living life without...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/12/16

• To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. First up Miriam Margolyes...---- It’s the final episode of the season and all my podcasting dreams have come true. Because my guest this week - by popular demand and a whole ton of begging - is the one, the only, the legend that is Miriam Margolyes. Miriam started her career in theatre and radio, voiced some of the best

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56:07

Lady Glenconner on stepping into the spotlight at 87

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/12/09

My guest on the final episode of this season is Anne, Lady Glenconner. Now 93, Lady Glenconner has lived to put it bluntly, one hell of a life. She was born in 1932, the eldest daughter of the 5th earl of Leicester and brought up in the early 20th century’s rigid social hierarchy on the ancestral estate of Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Which, incidentally, she didn’t inherit because primogeniture, of which more later. The royal family were a part of her life from birth. She played with

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61:31

Karen Dobres: how menopause & football turned me into...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/12/02

My guest today is the accidental radical Karen Dobres. Until her early fifties, Karen’s life had taken a path familiar to so many women. From modelling in her early twenties, she trained as a counsellor and worked alongside bringing up a family. So far, so familiar. Then, as she puts it, she had her final period, attended her first football match and everything changed.Growing up in the 70s, when girls weren’t allowed to play football at school (although the law had changed to technically allow

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60:06

Samantha Ellis on food, family and finding your...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/11/25

My guest today is a woman on a mission to preserve the language of her grandparents. Playwright, screenwriter and novelist Samantha Ellis is the author of one of my personal favourites How To Be A Heroine. Sam was in her early 40s and a new mum when it dawned on her that her mother tongue - or milk language - was on the verge of dying out.The daughter of Iraqi-Jewish refugees, Sam grew up surrounded by the noisy vivid hot sounds of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, but when she tried to tell her son he was

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62:38

Holly Dawson on facing permanent memory loss at 40

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/11/18

For many of us losing our memory is our worst nightmare. To be told that that is happening when you are still young (ish) is close to unimaginable. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, writer, teacher and reader in residence at Charleston, Holly Dawson.Holly was just 40 when she started to lose her grasp of where she was. She was ultimately diagnosed with epilepsy. A scan of her brain revealed a benign tumour and Holly found herself faced with the prospect of losing both her memory and her

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51:07

Bobbi Brown on doing it all her own way in her 60s

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/11/11

If you, like me, have lived most of your life in fear of foundation, this week’s guest is your saviour. Because this woman saved us no-makeup makeup girls’ lives. Back in 1991, Bobbi Brown was a makeup artist frustrated by the fact that most makeup looked like a mask. So she produced a range of 10 lipsticks that actually matched people’s lips. Shocker! Those lipsticks were the start of something huge: the first eponymous make up artist led beauty brand. A brand that Bobbi sold to Estee Lauder

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69:18

Hollie McNish on sex, shame and telling the truth...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/11/04

Today’s episode is basically a massive treat for me. Hollie McNish is my favourite poet. I first encountered her over a decade ago when I was doing an event for my thriller, The Woman Who Ran, at a literary festival. Hollie was in the big venue next door. The signing queue went on for miles. Let’s just say, it wasn’t for me. Hollie’s poetry speaks to people, women, mainly, let’s be honest. And we are quite literally queueing up to see her.Hollie’s poetry has millions of views on social media,

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53:04

Jen Hatmaker: “It’s like I woke up halfway through my...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/10/28

We talk a lot about women who want out, who want to set light to everything and walk away. But we don’t talk so much about the women who find someone else has put a bomb under their lives and left them standing in the rubble. That’s what happened to Jen Hatmaker… After 45 years of living life according to the good girl rules, she woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband of 26 years voice texting his girlfriend in bed beside her. In that minute, Everything she thought she knew was

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49:34

THE SHIFT LIVE: Mary Portas on fashion, Ab Fab & how...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/10/21

This episode of The Shift podcast, with the High Street legend, Mary Portas, is brought to you live from Cheltenham Literature Festival Mary is one of the UK’s most high profile and innovative business women. She made her name transforming dusty old Harvey Nichols into global fashion destination Harvey Nicks (with a little bit of help from Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Absolutely Fabulous!), leaving after a decade to found Portas her own creative company, helping to transform some of the

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67:25

Lyse Doucet – my extraordinary 40 years on the frontline

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/10/14

My guest today is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet.Since starting work at the corporation almost forty years ago, Lyse has covered all the major wars in the Middle East, reporting from Afghanistan Iraq Iran Jordan Israel Pakistan Egypt Libya and most recently Gaza. And that’s before we get started on the rest of the world. Sudan. The tsunami in Indonesia. And you may well remember her reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 from a rooftop in Kyiv. When we

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51:35

India Knight on finally gaining a sense of self in...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/10/07

(This episode first aired in November 2023)Today’s guest is the Sunday Times’ Style’s beauty columnist India Knight. Every week thousands of women turn to her column for beauty advice - not beauty junkies, not trend followers, just regular women like you and me who want to know what works, why it works and what’s worth spending their hard earned cash on. Now India has turned that column into a book, “India Knight’s Beauty Edit: what works when you’re older” giving practical advice if you’ve

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53:50

Hilma Wolitzer: 80 years of writing – and not done...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/30

(This episode first aired in August 2022.)My guest today is the writer Hilma Wolitzer. Born in 1930, Hilma had her first poem published at the age of 9. She then shelved that ambition in favour of marriage and children, as women were expected to in the 1950s. 26 years later she had her first short story published. Then there was no stopping her. Her first novel was published at the age of 44 and since then she has published 14 books. The most recent of which is the career-spanning short story

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56:36

Caryn Franklin on why fashion still fails older women...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/23

(This episode was first published in November 2022.)Today's guest is one of my personal heroes, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do. She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in

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61:51

Lisa Jewell on hitting a golden seam of success in...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/16

(This episode first aired in September 2022.)Today’s guest is one of Britain’s best loved novelists, Lisa Jewell. Her career started with a smash hit debut novel Ralph’s Party - which she started writing as a bet at the age of 27 while she was unemployed, and, according to her, “totally lacking in direction and ambition”. It was the book of the moment and for 14 novels it looked like her career - although ticking along nicely - would never hit those heights again. Then her writing took a turn

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53:18

Thomasina Miers on the midlife Mexican escape that...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/09

Hello and welcome to the final episode of season 18. 18!!!! My guest today is the cook, Thomasina Miers. Despite being taught to cook as a child, Tommi didn’t really embrace her love of food until her late 20s when a trip to Mexico inspired a love of Mexican food that was to change her life. In 2005, she became the first person ever to win Masterchef and two years later she co-founded the successful Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca. Tommi has also cheffed in Michelin star kitchens, set up

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54:06

Laura Lippmann is having a second coming at 60

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/02

A few weeks ago, I was pootling around on substack where The Shift newsletter lives - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ - and I noticed I had a DM from a new subscriber. It turned out to be from one of my favourite crime writers - the award winning Laura Lippmann, who some of you might know from the recent apple TV+ series of her novel, The Lady In The Lake. Laura had been brought to The Shift by a piece I wrote a year or so ago about how all of my friends were getting divorced. “I

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